Tuesday, December 4, 2007

ramblings about coffee

can i just say that i love coffee? i really do, more than i should. sometimes i think about being married and pregnant someday and not being able to drink coffee so freely and i start to wonder what i'm going to do...and then i remember that i'm single and not pregnant and being a bit ridiculous, not that that's surprising...
anyway, coffee...ah...today i got 2 gift certificates to my favorite coffee shop in town, CCs, and i could not have been more happy. i think what makes it even better for me is that it's not even really just about the rich flavors and variety and what not of the actual drink, but the joy of sharing it with others. yes, i have done the drive thru at CCs and starbucks a time or two, but you just can't compare that to sitting down with friends over a wonderful iced caramel latte and laughing and telling stories and having deep and real conversations. i love that. i love having gift certificates for coffee now so i can have another excuse to go for coffee with others and even treat them if they'll let me. i really wish i could have a job where i take people for good coffee and heart to heart conversations. that would be seriously pretty much perfect.
i think i also love coffee because it's played such a random, yet significant, role in my personal history. my family tradtion has been that dad brings coffee milk to the kids when he wakes them up in the morning. i didn't always appreciate this as a kid, but i've always liked the idea of how it was a tradition, because my papa had done it for his kids as well. i'll do it for my kids too, i imagine, or get my husband to bring it to them and me :)
other than that, though, i didn't really start drinking coffee regularly until i lived with my grandma for 2 years. it was our morning routine to wake up and have breakfast and coffee. for a while, we also had a wednesday morning routine of cooking biscuits and sausage and eggs and having dad and my brother and whoever else was up over, but that faded as miles started a new school schedule and grandma's health declined. but the two of us still had coffee and at least cereal most every morning, and even if we didn't talk much, it was still a sweet part of the day.
india is where i think i truly became addicted to coffee, which seems kind of funny since it's really more known for chai/tea. but coffee shops are popping up everywhere there now, and it's so cheap that we could easily go out for coffee mulitple times a week, esp in the last few months i was there, when our friends opened a coffee shop down the street from our apartment. we could even have coffee and sweets delivered to our door! truly dangerous...
but india is where it became a community thing. our supervisors had lived in mexico, and they drank coffee ALL the time, all hours of the day. and when i got a big coffee pot for my birthday, my roommates went from occasionally drinking coffee to having it every morning with me, as well as many afternoons and evenings with sweets and friends.
i can't say that it's taken over my life (though i won't deny that i am seriously addicted to caffiene), but coffee has definitely become a significant part of my life, if that makes sense. i guess it's really not the coffee itself, but the way it seems to be such a perfect thing for community to develop around, and that is where my heart really is. and, hey, it doesn't hurt that it tastes good too.
i'm not going to read back over this to see if it really makes sense, so forgive me if it's extra rambly...i should be packing right now for my upcoming wedding trip to alabama and california, but, well, i am a procrastinator at heart. ah well.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

hope bubbles

when i was in the check out line at walmart earlier, i had something to blog about, but i seem to have lost it. it was something, because i was feeling pretty overwhelmed this evening--i almost cried right there in the line with the 15 other people waiting to check out (and it wasn't just because it was so ridiculous in there!).
i don't know. today hasn't been a bad day. i've actually had fun, hanging out with friends, eating good food, watching football, helping out a friend's family, not being stuck at home. all good stuff. and yet i still feel so sad. so lost and confused and just plain mad about it all. i want SO much to know what the heck i'm supposed to do next with my life, and yet, every time i turn around i feel still so unsure, so confused and so frustrated and lonely.
i'm 27. i don't have a job. i'm not seeing anyone. i live with my parents. i have no real direction about what i want to do with my life. (insert expletive)
i had a little flash back moment earlier to a time when stuff like this would just totally overwhelm me to the point of just wanting to give up on it all. i thought about that for a moment and then i thought about how that hope is still bubbling up in my heart. painfully. but none the less, still there. i hate some days, some moments and decisions, but i don't hate life like i used to, and i think that's something to feel good about. there is Someone who will never let me go, and has and will NOT fail or forget or leave me, and when i let that sink in, hope bubbles a little more.
thank You.
i also heard once that when you have a bad day, sometimes the best thing you can do is just to go to sleep and hope that tomorrow is better, which sounds really good right about now.